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Mira
Mira Fallegeros 'is a new character introduced in Killer Instinct Season 3. She is Maya's fraternal twin sister. She supposedly sacrificed herself to save Maya during a mission in some Siberian mountains years ago, but has returned as a bloodthirsty vampiress. Appearance Mira has pale-white skin, gold eyes, and tied-back black hair. She wears a red scarf draped over her shoulders while her upper torso, shoulders, and arms are clad with spiked armor, with her most notable features in that regard being claw-like gauntlets on her hands and a large, multi-spiked pauldron on her right shoulder. Underneath her armor appears to be a belted corset of some kind and thigh-high leather boots. A tattered, red cloak is tied around her waist, held in place by a slightly arrow-shaped buckle. In her hair is a ruby scarab beetle-shaped hairpiece, and on each gauntlet is a black metal scarab which latches its claws into her arms before each battle. Her magical blood is shiny and silver, heavily resembling the liquid metal mercury. Powers & Abilities As Mira used to be human of the Night Guard, but now turned into a vampire, she uses blood magic. But instead of the blood being colored red, it is silver like mercury. Story A former member of the Night Guard, Mira Fallegeros is Maya's fraternal twin sister. The two grew up together and under their father's tutelage became the Night Guard's best team of hunters. On a mission to kill a group of vampires in the Siberian Mountains, Mira sacrifices herself to save Maya and seemingly perishes, but the vampires find her and convert her into one of their own. Corrupting her and granting her a pair of gauntlets that allow her to tap into her newfound powers. Extended Story '"Chapter 1: The Road to Ravensburg": The black 1967 Ferrari Dino roared down the curving country lane toward the castle frowning down from the hillside half a mile ahead. The woman at the wheel was just as sleek and dangerous-looking as her famously streamlined sports car. Mira was dressed in a black leather coat and matching suede pants, and wearing sunglasses despite the fact that it was dusk. Her jet-black mane—as dark as the spaces between stars—was pulled back and fastened with an antique jeweled scarab clip. Rather than make her appear dowdy, this hairstyle accentuated her high cheekbones and perfectly shaped ruby lips. Her skin was so pale that at first glance she looked like a statue carved from the purest alabaster. There was a palpable air of strength and beauty about her… And menace. “Mira? Can you hear me? This is Porfiry.” The voice came from a tiny transmitter she wore inside her ear, and it interrupted her thoughts like an annoying bug. It was a male voice, with a thick Russian accent speaking in English—a voice that she always found to be excruciatingly smug. “The Tsar,” Porfiry continued, “is relying upon you—against my better judgement, mind you—to find the relic.” Mira ignored him. Her graceful yet firm hand clutched the round chrome shift knob with two fingers and a thumb, like a queen toying with her scepter, as she downshifted from third to second and back again, accelerating out of a sharp bend. The German landscape raced past the windows—a blur of trees, low rock walls, and the occasional random goat grazing by the roadside. “Mira? I demand that you answer me.” “Cale-se!” spat Mira in Portuguese. “Shut up, Porfiry. You’re worse than a mosquito.” “The Tsar must have the relic,” he replied. “And the Tsar will get his precious artifact,” she said. I don’t need your little reminders. You forget to whom you speak. I was once a member of the Night Guard. I know what I’m doing.” “But lycanthropes are dange—” She cut him off by plucking the earpiece from her ear and tossing it in the passenger seat footwell. She sighed. The Coven was crawling with men like Porfiry: toadies of the Tsar who were too anemic to actually go out and do the Coven’s dirty work. Right now Porfiry—the pudgy oaf—was safely ensconced in the Saint Petersburg headquarters, watching her every move on a computer screen via satellite, trying to direct her as though she were his drone and he the joystick-jockey. If she had her way, men like him would be weeded out of the Coven. In the coming battle there would be no place in the Tsar’s ranks for the weak of body or mind. Rounding a hairpin turn, she floored the gas pedal as she came out onto a straightaway, bombing down the lane leading to the castle, throwing up Autumn leaves in the car’s wake. She smiled, revealing long pointed fangs. This sports car had been the pride and joy of the billionaire from whom she had borrowed it. He wouldn’t miss the rare toy, though. The dead had no need of possessions. *** Mira pulled up to the castle gates and came to an abrupt stop. The engine growled expectantly, waiting to tear off down the road again. She gazed at the rusting wrought-iron work emblazoned with the family crest: a snarling wolf’s head and a dueling saber. This was the sigil of the once legendary and now infamous von Sabrewulf family. She remembered a story that her grandfather had told her and her sister Maya when they were girls—a tale of German aristocrats who purposefully lacerated each other’s faces with sabers so that they could bear a mark of honor. Mira and Maya had promptly gone out and taken turns cutting each other with their pocket knives. If men weren’t afraid of scars, they wouldn’t be either. She wondered where her sister was now. The last time she had seen her was five years ago. The pair had been sent to Russia, ordered by the Night Guard to assassinate the self-proclaimed “New Tsar” and wipe out his growing vampire army. But they’d been lured into a trap—cornered in the depths of the labyrinthine caves deep beneath the Ural Mountains. Maya had been severely wounded with little chance of escape. So Mira had done what any sister would do for her beloved sibling. She’d rushed down a corridor with a pack of explosives, hurling them at a band of skeletal wendigoes and their vampire handlers, causing a massive cave-in that allowed Maya to escape, but burying Mira in rubble. The vampires had pulled her broken body from the debris and taken her to the Tsar himself. He had “healed” her—honoring her with his elixir… A crow cawed loudly, startling her from her thoughts, filling her with foreboding. She did not like crows. They were harbingers of misfortune for the coven. The bird was sitting on the von Sabrewulf crest, staring at her with an inquisitive eye, its beak open wide. She hissed at it and the crow flapped its wings and took off, soaring over the weedy gravel road leading to the castle standing a hundred yards away. She watched the bird until it disappeared in the branches of one of the many overgrown trees lining the lane. She could hear more crows screeching in the distance. She wondered why there weren’t any ravens about. This place was called Ravensburg, after all. She peered through the gates. The von Sabrewulf manor wasn’t a romantic looking place, she considered. Not like the immense castle of Neuschwanstein that had made this region famous: that castle was all spires and towering walls, like something out of a fantasy movie. But the von Sabrewulf home was a decrepit and sprawling place made up of an assemblage of buildings spanning a thousand years: dark, grand and crumbling…the perfect setting for a Gothic novel. On one end stood a Medieval crenelated turret—the oldest remnant of the von Sabrewulf origins. Modern windows had been fitted into the places that had once served as arrow loops. Mira knew that the family had once served as the European wing of the Night Guard—the band of monster hunters her ancestors had assembled centuries ago, headquartered in the ruins of an Incan citadel high in the Andes. For decades the von Sabrewulf heirs and Mira’s family had worked together with other brave men and women around the world to root out denizens of the night; but then tragedy had struck the German family, and the last heir of that once noble lineage had changed into something corrupt and depraved… “Just like me,” Mira said to herself. It had grown dark. She took off her sunglasses, revealing cat-like pupils. There were no signs of any security guards on the grounds. But the wall surrounding the property was high and topped with rusted iron spikes. And she could see a single light emanating from a lower window of the turret. Somebody, or some thing was there. She set the parking brake and turned off the car; it rumbled in protest as the motor died, then it was quiet save for the faint metallic clicking sound of the hot engine as it started to cool. Mira got out and strode around to the trunk and opened it. A man’s corpse lay curled in the back as if in sleep, a confused expression on his face. His skin was ashen, as though all of the blood had been drained from him. A few hours ago he’d been a ruddy-faced and hearty man named Gennady: a Russian billionaire and self-proclaimed “Master of the World.” And a very very bad man. Gennady had climbed the ranks of the new Russian Plutocracy with cunning and viciousness, like a brutal warlord from an earlier age. No one would weep for his death. Mira had met him at an exclusive club a few days before and he’d fallen for her at first sight. It had all been arranged by the Tsar, of course. He needed a way to get her from Russia to Germany without the prying eyes of governments or the spying of the megacorporation Ultratech with its powerful artificial intelligence leader: the ever watchful ARIA. The sentient machine had become aware of the Tsar and had been trying to track his and the Coven’s movements. At Mira’s urging Gennady had flown her to a private airport in Switzerland in his personal jet, thus bypassing customs. The Ferrari Dino had been waiting on the tarmac to speed them across the border to Germany, and then to Gennady’s penthouse in Berlin—his getaway bachelor pad that he’d been dying to show her. But Mira had never intended on taking that detour. And the billionaire had expired with a baffled look on his cruel face. She reached inside the trunk, casually pushing aside the body to pull out a black steel case. Then she opened the heavy lid to reveal foam-fitting compartments containing a pair of scarab-adorned gauntlets—bloodstained gloves dominated by ten finger-daggers ending in wicked points. These were the Gloves of Rasavatham—a perverse version of the Philosopher’s Stone. They tapped into a vampire’s blood, morphing its plasma into liquid metal by an arcane alchemical process. A vampire’s blood could then be wielded as a living weapon. But the process was extremely taxing, and a user of the gauntlets had to quickly replenish the store of plasma, otherwise the wearer would start to fade. Pulling up her sleeves to reveal bare forearms covered with puncture wound scars, Mira paused for a moment, steeling herself for what was about to happen…for the rush of mingled pain and pleasure that came with donning these ancient weapons. The gauntlets had been given to her by the Tsar himself upon her initiation ceremony; and she both loved and hated them. She slipped her fingers and thumbs into the talon-like sheaths. “Sangue do meu sangue,” she whispered. “Blood of my blood.” As if summoned by her words, six insect-like fangs protruded from each gauntlet, plunging into her skin. She arched her back and let forth a groan. Was it ecstasy or agony? The sensations had become one and the same. The veins of her forearms pulsed and bulged like purple worms under her skin; and then the veins in her neck did the same. Now she was ready for anything that might cross her path. Slamming shut the trunk, she headed down the road and away from the gates, her boots crunching on the gravel. As she went by the passenger seat window she could just make out Porfiry’s voice emanating from the earpiece on the car floor. He was frantically shouting something. Screaming at her about the relic, no doubt. She shrugged and kept walking. Porfiry was prone to hysterics. She would find the treasured object and lay it at the feet of the Tsar, despite Porfiry’s lack of faith in her. After she had gone five hundred feet along the wall she paused and looked around. The only living things she saw were some black goats in a field on the other side of the road. Satisfied that she was alone, she leaped straight at the wall and stuck to it, digging into the stone with her talons. Then she scaled the twenty-foot-high face with the skill of a lizard. When she neared the top she swiped at the spikes embedded there, snapping them like twigs, then deftly bounded over the other side, dropping to the ground. She waited there for a moment, her back pressed against the clammy wall. The moon would rise soon, but it was dark now. The first bats were out, squeaking their high-pitched echolocation sounds. Mira reached out with a lightning fast motion and grabbed one right out of the air. The little head poking from her fist stared at her with its beady eyes, tiny fangs bared, and its pig-like nose twitching. “Do not be afraid little sister,” Mira said. The “flying mouse” as the Germans called them, squeaked with fear, and Mira smiled. “Back to the hunt.” She released the animal, then sprinted across the grounds until she was standing underneath the turret’s ground floor window. She peered into a chamber—a sitting room of sorts. It was decorated as one would expect: leather bound books, oriental rug, oil paintings on the walls. A fire was burning in the hearth; and there was an enormous grey dog curled up on the rug in front of it. A giant wolfhound of some breed. But this “dog” was wearing tattered trousers! Mira smiled wryly. She had never seen a werewolf before, but she realized that she was looking at one right now; and it was poor Konrad von Sabrewulf himself. She had heard stories about how he had tried for many years to cure himself of his lycanthropy. How he had gone through unbearable treatments, subjecting himself to arcane potions and magic in a futile effort to recapture his humanity. And here he was now, relegated to playing the family dog. *** Picking the lock on the servants’ entrance with her taloned finger was simple. The lock’s tumblers clicked into place, and just like that Mira was inside the manor house, slipping quietly along the marble floors like a shadow, her nocturnal eyes seeing everything despite the dark. She had memorized a map of the place—the Coven had acquired a copy of the original architect’s drawings from the German historical archives. Knowing just where to go she quickly arrived at the ballroom. What had once been a fabulous hall—with two huge arched windows and a grandiose staircase on one end—had been turned into a madman’s laboratory. There was an operating table with reinforced leather straps attached, and antiquated machinery hanging from the ceiling…a Tesla coil of some sort. A makeshift furnace—resembling something from a rusting steam engine—had been constructed against one wall. Arcane medical equipment and other paraphernalia lay strewn about. She glanced up at a pair of severed arms preserved in formaldehyde hanging from wires. “Cachorro sujo,” she muttered in Portuguese, curling her upper lip with disgust. “Filthy dog.” She turned around and saw a portrait hanging on the wall opposite. It bore the likeness of a young, rakish man with a strong chin and weak eyes. She knew that this was a painting of Count Konrad himself—or was he a Baron? Tanto faz! It didn’t matter! The picture showed the aristocrat before the accident that had turned him into a monster. He’d been a gambler and an addict in his youth. His own stupidity had led to his affliction, for in a drunken stupor he’d cut himself on a trophy in the Night Guard’s collection—a werewolf’s claw coated with dried blood. And thus his agonizing metamorphosis had begun. Looking around at the scientific equipment she imagined the torment Konrad had endured…heard his tortured screams turning to howls as he tried to stem the metamorphosis. She remembered her own transformation after the Tsar had infused her with his dark elixir. At first she had rebelled against the cold venom that had coursed through her veins, screaming with rage, locked in a cell, guarded day and night by wendigoes reeking of the grave—sickened to her core as her upper and lower canine teeth were slowly pushed out by the new fangs that had erupted from her gums. The first blood she’d tasted in her mouth as a vampire had been her own. But afterwards…after she had accepted what had happened, she had embraced the power that had come with her rebirth. Light was temporary. Darkness always prevailed. And she had succumbed, giving her heart—but mostly her soul—to the Tsar. She would help him usher in the new age. *** The harsh call of a crow once again startled her from her reverie. She could see it through one of the arched windows, circling over the tower. The moon had just risen and illuminated the shapes of other crows. There was an entire murder of them soaring over the mansion. She turned around. The entire back wall of the room was a floor to ceiling bookcase, twenty feet tall with a ladder on wheels and rails so that one could reach the loftiest tomes. Surely the relic she had been sent to find would be here. Striding to the shelves, she scanned the spines of the books, climbing the ladder to get up higher. She pulled a heavy gilt volume from a shelf. The title was in ancient Greek, so she tossed it onto the floor. She recognized many languages: Coptic, German, Latin… Looking up she saw something with hieroglyphs emblazoned on the spine. Her heart beat faster as she reached for it. But when she took it off the shelf and opened the cover, she realized that it was nothing more than a scholarly treatise on grain shipments under the rule of the Ptolemies of the last dynasty. She flung it aside with annoyance. A crow sang out in the distance. An excited and raucous cry. The skin on the back of Mira’s neck tingled. Without thinking she hurled herself from the ladder, landing on the floor on all fours with a cat-like grace. BOOM! A split second later a massive object exploded through one of the window arches. It slammed into the bookshelf behind her with an earsplitting din, sending books flying, blasting the ladder to bits, then fell onto the marble floor behind her with a deafening clang. Mira swore under her breath as she realized what she was looking at. It was the Ferrari. Smashed nearly beyond recognition. And something outside had hurled it the hundred yards from the road to the mansion. Mira got up cautiously and made her way through the thick dust to the window and peered into the dark. Both of the manor’s gates had been ripped off along with a good chunk of the wall on either side. Whatever had caused this mayhem was now moving down the lane—a great lumbering shape with blue lights shining like headlamps—pushing through the overgrown trees. Was it some kind of military vehicle? An Ultratech war machine? She could feel the ground trembling as it moved. There was something else down there too: the figure of a man walking out in front of the thing—a muscular man with a bare chest and feathers in his hair, holding axes in both hands, the silver edges of the blades glinting in the moonlight. Dozens of crows were flying around him, keeping pace with his strides. “Tsar’s blood!” she hissed, realizing that the huge hulking thing was the war-golem Aganos; and the man with the crows was the Killer Instinct fighter known as Thunder. Created by ARIA, the Killer Instinct tournament was a modern-day gladiatorial contest pitting the world’s best fighters against one another, as well as against Ultratech’s creations. Aganos and Thunder had both fought in the tournament; and each was a dangerous combatant. But what were they doing together? And why were they attacking the von Sabrewulf castle? Was this what Porfiry had been trying to warn her about after she’d tossed away the earpiece? Just then a blood-curdling howl erupted from the turret. Mira dashed back to the bookcase, scrambling over the remains of the Ferrari. How would she find the relic in this mess now? Then her heart skipped a beat. The force of the hurled automobile had caused the wall to move at an odd angle, revealing a hidden space behind. She squeezed through the opening and found herself in a twisting stone stairwell. Moving down the steps, she turned in tight circles, her eyes instantly adjusting to the darkness. After going down twenty flights of stairs she started to see a yellow glow, and then suddenly she found herself in a massive chamber—a catacomb much larger than the ballroom above. There stood row after row of high oak bookshelves and wooden crates stacked against the walls from floor to ceiling. The place was lit by an old chandelier that flickered erratically. In the dim glow she saw scrolls and ancient tomes; archaic weapons and other antiquities. She moved down middle row of books, heading deep into the heart of the chamber. In the center of the room was a small open space containing a solitary carved wood stand. Displayed on it and protected under a glass case was a book bound in cracked leather. Upon the cover was affixed a gold figure: a scarab-headed man—Khepri, the Egyptian god of rebirth. She had found the relic! She reached out a hand to take it but stopped short. Something was moving behind her. And it was snarling like a wolf. Chapter 4: Conflux: Mira slowly backed away from the werewolf, positioning herself between the snarling beast and the ancient tome encased in glass on its wooden stand. Sabrewulf let forth a feral howl, but the look in his eyes—darting from Mira to the relic and back again—was clearly human. He knew why she had broken into his secret subterranean library. And he was not pleased. He attacked without warning, lunging low and grasping for her legs. But Mira leapt aside at the last second, scrambling up one of the chamber’s massive fifteen-foot-tall bookcase stacks as if she was scaling a ladder. Sabrewulf hurled himself into the lower shelves, smashing the oak planks and sending books flying. Mira leapt to the top of the next stack where she sat hunched like an angry cat. All of a sudden the chamber’s ceiling shook, and grit rained down from above, dusting her head and shoulders. The lights flickered off and on. Something was walking around in the ballroom above. Something incredibly heavy. Mira knew it was the war-golem Aganos. He and his companion, the warrior Thunder, would find the hidden entrance to this library soon enough…and then Mira would be trapped down here. “I don’t have enough elixir to fight all three,” she thought, clenching her fists inside their gauntlets. She wished she hadn’t thrown away her communication device so rashly. She could have called Porfiry and asked for help. A small army of wendigoes would do nicely right now. The skeletal flesh-eating beasts—when controlled by the Coven—were effective and terrifying predators. With a frustrated bark Sabrewulf attacked the lower part of the bookcase she was on, threatening to tip the whole thing over. Mira jumped to the top of the next stack, skidding across its dusty surface and knocking over some moldy boxes that had been stored there. She quickly took in her surroundings. From up here she could see the entire chamber with its dozens of towering book stacks. Porfiry had told her that this room had been built in the Dark Ages, and it had originally been used as a crypt. At the back of the library stood a stone altar, and hanging above it was a life-size gilded crucifix. Staring at the cross pained her eyes and she looked away. “You and I are not so different,” she called to Sabrewulf who was pacing around beneath her perch, whining like a confused dog who had treed a squirrel. “We are both pariahs.” Glancing down at the top of the stack, she noticed that one of the boxes she had knocked over had spilled its contents: old bones, shards of pottery and something sharp—a claw the size and shape of a meat hook. She picked it up carefully and hid it behind her back, then peered down at Sabrewulf who was glaring up at her with a rapacious gleam in his eyes. “The Coven can use fighters like you,” she continued. “We respect and honor those who have…” She paused and chose her next word carefully, “…changed. Look at me, Konrad. I was once a human being, just like you. Now I am something more. Something better!” Sabrewulf ignored her. He grabbed the stack and started rocking it, back and forth. The massive oak casement swayed under his powerful efforts. He gave one final heave and the stack fell like an enormous domino, knocking over several other stacks; but Mira was already dropping to the floor, the claw held out in front of her. Plunging it deep into Sabrewulf’s neck, she rolled away, scrabbling across the stones, putting some distance between her and the wounded lycanthrope. Dust filled the air from the wreckage of the stacks. Mira crouched low and smiled, revealing her long fangs, for Sabrewulf’s neck was spurting blood like a fountain, and his body was convulsing spasmodically. He slumped to his knees and his tongue lolled from his mouth. Then he fell over in a pool of his own gore and was silent. “That was easy,” Mira said. She got up and sauntered over to the relic. Somehow the glass case had managed to remain unscathed amidst the destruction wrought by Sabrewulf. The book of Khepri—with its golden scarab-faced figure mounted to the cover—glowed beneath the glass. The tome was fairly small…no bigger than a modern hardcover novel. But it exuded a powerful pull. A palpable evil. Mira hesitated. She was suddenly loath to touch it. The scarab beetle, she knew, rolled its ball of dung across the desert sands of northern Africa. And the Egyptians—in the days of the Pharaohs—believed that the god Khepri pushed the sun across the heavens like a giant dung beetle with a golden prize, thus it was associated with death and rebirth. But who or what, she wondered, did the Tsar wish to bring back to life? Her grandfather, an expert on Egyptian lore, had explained to her during her education at the Night Guard headquarters, that Khepri rode in a boat held aloft by Nu—the representation of the primordial watery abyss. The world was encapsulated inside of Nu. So Khepri had the ability to traverse between the two worlds…essentially a dimensional traveler. Perhaps this book had something to do with making portals between dimensions. Mira reached tentatively for the glass case, but was stopped short by a hideous scream ripping through the catacomb. She whirled. Eyes wide. Gauntlets raised. Sabrewulf had gotten to his feet and stood there swaying. He grabbed at the claw sticking from his neck, yanked it out with a chunk of fur still attached, then tossed the bloody mess onto the floor. His eyes had changed…they were glowing green now. And his body seemed to be increasing in mass—his muscles expanding rapidly inside his fur-covered hide. He splayed out his fingers as his claws grew to the length of daggers. “Merda,” said Mira under her breath. She realized what she had done: she’d skewered him with the same werewolf claw that had caused his original metamorphosis. And now she had somehow amplified his transformative powers. Sabrewulf bore into her with his crazed eyes. His black lips curled back, displaying his maw of sharp white teeth. Then he spread his arms and thrust out his chest like an enraged silverback gorilla, and let out an earsplitting howl. Swinging his arms back and forth, he shredded one of the oak bookshelves as if it were made of nothing more than straw. The deranged werewolf paused for a moment, breathing hard, eyes bulging from their sockets…then he sprang at Mira. But she twisted in the air, eluding Sabrewulf’s attack, and he landed on the glass case, shattering it. The book of Khepri sailed across the room and skidded on the flagstones. She dove for the book, grabbing it and clutching it to her breast. Before Sabrewulf could attack again she plunged into the wreckage of the toppled bookshelves, squirming her way between the broken stacks. Sabrewulf bellowed and started tearing the rest of the library apart, spinning around and smashing everything in sight. He was out of his mind now—nothing more than a berserk killing machine bent on murder. Mira crawled as fast as she could through the narrow space between two fallen stacks, making her way to the back of the chamber. But Sabrewulf was right behind her, churning through the bookshelves like a combine blade harvesting a field of wheat. She scrambled from the debris, emerging at the altar. Jumping on top of the flat stone, she reached up and clutched the base of the gilded cross—the touch of it sent a burning shockwave through her hand and arm and she cried out in agony. But the crucifix moved, and the wall behind it slid open to reveal a dark passage. Porfiry, the imp, had done his homework. He’d told her about this secret door in her mission briefing. Mira shot into the black entrance as the door slammed shut automatically behind her; and her eyes adjusted instantly to the darkness as she rushed down a long corridor. After fifty paces the shaft ended, and she saw a flight of steps leading up. Clamping the book under one arm, she sprinted up this twisting stairwell, eventually emerging inside a hidden niche behind the furnace in Sabrewulf’s ballroom- turned-alchemical-lab. She was now opposite the secret bookshelf entrance leading to the underground library. Aganos was there with his back to her, standing near her wrecked Ferrari. The gigantic masked war-golem—a collection of boulders knit together with vines—was trying to forge an opening with his stone club big enough for him to enter the catacombs below. Mira realized she could easily make her escape from this room up the main stairway leading to the balcony. But the instant she took a step forward something kicked her hard in the side, and she tumbled forward, landing face first on the smooth marble floor, her metal palm guards scraping noisily as she slid to a stop. She cursed under her breath. The book of Khepri had flown from her grasp. Springing to her feet she spun around to face her attacker. It was Thunder—the Native American warrior, his muscles rippling as though he were carved from mountain stone. He scraped his axes together, sharpening them for the kill, and squinted at her menacingly. Then he called to Aganos: “This one brings bad medicine, piswéeqiiwn. Her blood is tainted. She is Coven-born.” He started walking toward her, kicking the book of Khepri aside as he came. “Letuchiye myshi!” Mira cried in Russian, and a stream of silver bats shot from her hands, blasting Thunder in the face. But he forged ahead, swinging his axes at the bats like scythes, forcing Mira to back up toward the wall where Aganos waited with his giant club. The stench of death hit Mira’s nostrils the second before she heard the unearthly cries—a crazed yapping that sounded like a hyena crossed with a lunatic. A horde of wendigoes appeared at the arched windows, crawling over the low wall and into the laboratory like spiders, red eyes glowing in their skeletal heads. They resembled decaying elk with the teeth of wolves, and the sight of them made Thunder stop and stare with hatred. “I do not fear these cannibals!” he cried. “Tuman vampira!” Mira cried in the language of the Coven, and a silvery mist sprayed from her hands, shrouding her in a cloak of vapor. She sprinted forward, bending down to snatch up the book of Khepri, and darted from the hall as a pack of wendigoes swarmed on top of Aganos. Another group surrounded Thunder. Mira bounded toward the stairs leading to the balcony; but as she passed the niche by the furnace, Sabrewulf leapt out from where he’d been hiding and gave chase. Rushing out onto the terrace, Mira staggered back as she was hit by a powerful blast of wind. A black military helicopter swooped down, hovering near the second story platform, blinding her with its spotlight. Mira heard Sabrewulf snarling right behind her. Moving without thinking, she put the book’s front cover in her mouth and bit down hard, and then sprang onto the balcony’s narrow railing before leaping at the helicopter. For an instant she was suspended in mid-air, and then her hands found the landing skids and she grasped them. But Sabrewulf had caught her by one foot. He tried to drag her back to the terrace, fighting against the pull of the helicopter, with Mira stretched out like torture victim on a Medieval rack. She felt her hands slipping from the skids. The sound of automatic gunfire blasted from the helicopter. Sabrewulf barked and released Mira from his clutches. Then she was flying away from the mansion, dangling from the helicopter precariously. She twisted her head around and looked back at the balcony—saw the werewolf swarmed by wendigoes. But then the helicopter’s spotlight swiveled, and the castle was lost in darkness. “Welcome aboard,” yelled a voice as Mira swung herself up and through the open gun door. She lay sprawled on the floor of helicopter for a moment, catching her breath. Porfiry was grinning at her from his seat behind a heavy machine gun attached to a swivel mount. She pulled the book from her mouth. Her fangs had made puncture holes in the thick leather cover, but other than that the precious thing was intact. She sat down on the seat across from Porfiry, and put on a headset so that they could hear each other over the noise of the rushing wind and rotors. “I’ve been following you the whole time you’ve been in Germany,” Porfiry said through the headset. “To make certain that you didn’t fail.” “I’m glad you did,” she replied calmly into her microphone. Her hand still burned and throbbed from touching the crucifix, but she clenched her teeth and refused to reveal that she was in pain. “Truly?” he asked, smiling widely and showing his stubby little fangs. “I could have gotten out of there on my own,” she said with a shrug. “But I had some car trouble. At least now I don’t have to walk back to Russia.” Gameplay Unique Trait - Blood Magic: Mira's Medium and Heavy moves use her own metallic blood and deal immense damage - however, as she uses her blood magic, gray recoverable damage will accumulate on her health bar. This damage functions like very real normal damage. If her entire health bar is recoverable damage and she uses a blood move, she will begin to lose her recoverable damage as well. However, Mira cannot self-destruct because of this, instead simply losing the ability to use any more blood moves and turning all of her Heavy and Medium moves into Lights. Combo Trait -''' '''Vampiric Appetite: Mira can restore portions of her recoverable damage by performing the command grabs Embrace or Shadow Embrace on her opponent - in return, Embrace and Shadow Embrace don't deal any damage. Instinct Mode - Vicious Metamorphosis: Mira begins to automatically summon Blood Seeker bats over time, spawning a new one as each is destroyed. Additionally, she can Air Dash an unlimited number of times while midair, and the recoverable damage from Air Dashing is greatly reduced. Mira can also use Vicious Shroud (HP+HK), which sends a cloud of bloody mist forwards. If the cloud hits, it will latch onto the opponent and transfer Mira's recoverable damage to the opponent as potential damage, effectively healing Mira. Command Attacks * Mist Form - (3P) - Mira temporarily transforms into a cloud of bloody mist. Holding any direction will cause Mira to move a short distance while in her mist. Fully invulnerable, can be used midair, and enables a second Air Dash after a midair use. Inflicts recoverable damage. * Vicious Strikes - (Back+HP) - Mira performs a quick four-hit slash combo, visually similar to Maya's Savage Strikes. * Air Dash - (Forward-Forward or Back-Back, midair) - Mira dashes through the air on jets of blood. Inflicts recoverable damage. * Throw - (Forward or Back+LP+LK) - Mira grabs the opponent and slashes them away with a large blood scythe. Inflicts recoverable damage. Special Moves * Blood Seekers - (QCF+P) - Mira summons bloody bats that fly forwards. Medium version tracks the opponent's current location, Heavy version tracks the opponent themselves. Bats disappear when Mira takes damage. Acts as a Wallsplat Ender. * Embrace - (QCB+K) - Mira grabs the opponent, swirls into the air with them, and sucks their blood before dropping them. Recovers some recoverable damage, but does not deal any damage to the opponent. Medium version is an anti-air and Heavy travels further. Acts as a Recovery Ender. * Reaping - (QCB+P) - Mira swings forwards with bloody blades. In the Light version she uses two daggers, in the Medium she uses a large scythe, and in the Heavy the second scythe hit is an overhead and recaptures. Acts as a Damage Ender. * Trephine - (QCF+K) - Mira lunges forwards with a low corkscrew-spinning kick. Avoids projectiles. Medium version moves through the opponent, Heavy version ends with a backflip kick similar to Maya's backwards Tumble Kick. Acts as an Exchange Ender. Shadow Moves * Shadow Blood Seekers - (QCF+2P) - Mira summons bloody bats that fly up from underneath the opponent like a geyser. Inflicts recoverable damage. * Shadow Embrace - (QCB+2K) - Mira grabs the opponent, swirls into the air with them, and sucks their blood before dropping them. Recovers a lot of recoverable damage, but still does not deal any damage to the opponent. * Shadow Reaping - (QCB+2P) - Mira swings a large blood scythe upwards, hitting five times. Invulnerable on startup. Inflicts recoverable damage. * Shadow Trephine - (QCF+2K) - Mira lunges forwards with a low corkscrew-spinning kick, hitting five times. Invulnerable to projectiles. Inflicts recoverable damage. Ultra Combo: 26 Hits Music The theme was made by Celldweller & Atlas Plug. It consists of gothic opera similar to the Castlevania series & techno-rock music, soprano singer Jeanette Vecchione and a Russian violin choir. When both combatants remain idle for a while using her theme in any stages, the remix of the "The Instinct" will start to play. Quotes Gallery Mira teaser trailer 01.jpg|Mira teaser Mira Teaser.jpg|Mira teaser closed up Mira.png|Mira's Season 3 launch reveal Miras trailer.jpg|Mira's trailer reveal Mira.jpg|Mira wallpaper Mira-Wallpaper.jpg|Mira wallpaper (no KI logo) ki-xb1-mira-1-watermark.png|The first leaked image of Mira from the character select, revealing her name. Her pose is Maya's, used as a placeholder in that build of the game. Mira leaked.png|Second leaked image of Mira, showing her in-game model with proper model rigging. Mira with Sabrewulf's stage.jpg|Mira in Alchemical Lab Trivia *Another vampire character was originally created for Killer Instinct 2, but the character was scrapped late into development. The name "Vampire" can still be found in the game's files. The vampire's stage theme, Bloodlust, however, was salvaged and made into the theme of Count Batula in Conker's Bad Fur Day. *One of the costumes available to Mira is the mask and hood of the Fable character Jack of Blades, a shout-out to another Microsoft game series. One of her costumes is based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Her 9th color of her standard skin may be a cultural reference to Jack from The Night Before Christmas or Beetlejuice, both movies directed by Tim Burton. *Following Rash, Mira doesn't have her own stage in Killer Instinct, but does have her own selectable theme for any stage. Interestingly, Mira shares Sabrewulf's Alchemical Lab as her stage in the game, likely as a placeholder in similarity to the situation with Omen sharing Shadow Tiger's Lair with Shadow Jago, and Kan-Ra sharing Forbidden Archive with Rash in Survival Mode. This here by making her the third fighter amongst the roster who shares an arena with another combatant. *What's even more strange about her stage location, though its been established that Sabrewulf's stage fits more with her overall character, when playing survival mode she appears on Jago's Tiger's Lair. One could imply her body might have actually been found at the ruins of the Tiger Temple, or she was in search hunting Jago for some unexplained reason. (Possible hint of her planning to summon Gargos at the Temple where Jago lies?) Currently, both her's and Rash's stage orders have yet to be fully explained. *Mira, as well as Maya, are also the third pair of characters who happen to be siblings amongst the roster, first being Jago and Orchid, and second being Thunder and Fulgore aka Eagle. Category:Female Characters Category:Killer Instinct 2013 Category:Killer Instinct 2013 Characters Category:Characters Category:Evil Characters